Satie: Piano Works CD review – admirable poise

Olga Scheps (piano)(RCA Red Label)Erik Satie (1866-1925) occupies a unique place in the musical pantheon, eschewing all artifice and show, stripping his compositions back to the bare essentials and creating a world of calm and order (he called it “music without sauerkraut”). His Trois Gymnopédies (1888) and Six Gnossiennes (1889-97) are popular examples of his style, played here with unremarkable simplicity (for there is no other way to play them) by the Russian-born pianist O